Touch screen voting machines more error-prone than optical-scanners

Monday

Jan 17, 2005 at 12:01 AMJan 17, 2005 at 12:22 AM

The Associated Press

FORT LAUDERDALE - Optical-scan machines outperformed touch screens in the general election, although both had a similar error rate, a newspaper reported Sunday.
The touch-screen voting machines performed better in the Nov. 2 presidential election than they did in the March presidential preference primary, according to a South Florida Sun-Sentinel analysis. But the touch-screen machines were still outmatched by older voting devices that use pencil and paper ballots.
The evaluation was based on undervotes cast on each system. Undervotes are instances in which the voter skipped the presidential race or a choice was not tallied for reasons including machine and software error. Overvotes occur when more than one choice was recorded for a single-candidate race.
Of 2.7 million votes on touch screens reviewed, 11,824 ballots had no vote registered for president, resulting in an error rate of 0.44 percent. Of 2.3 million votes on optical-scan machines, 6,731 ballots were not recorded or flawed for an error rate of 0.29 percent.
In the March primary, optical scan machines had an error rate of 0.12 percent, while the touch screen machines had a 1.09 percent rate of undervotes, the newspaper found.
The presidential race was chosen for study because it appears as the first race on the ballot and is considered the least likely race in which voters would purposely not cast a ballot. The study did not examine votes cast absentee or those cast during the early voting period.
A spokeswoman for Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood said the difference between the two voting systems was not significant, noting both obtained an error rate of less than 0.5 percent in the newspaper's analysis.
"I believe it is incorrect to state that touch-screen machines were outperformed by optical-scan machines due to a minor difference in the undervote rates," spokeswoman Jenny Nash wrote in an e-mail message to the newspaper. "An undervote . . . is the prerogative of the voter and not an error."
State officials have praised the performance of touch-screen devices, touting them as the future of voting and the solution to the punch-card machines that added to the confusion of the controversial 2000 presidential election.
Fifteen of Florida's 67 counties used touch-screen voting machines, including most of the heavily populated ones.
The Ohio secretary of state said this week that they will no longer use touch-screen machines.